I’m being uprooted yet again, writes Ernest Pipe, it wasn’t too long ago that I wrote these precise words: I’m being uprooted yet again.
I must find pleasure in being uprooted, in uprooting myself, in never letting my roots grow too deep.
At least not deep into places.
I don’t get attached to places, writes Ernest Pipe, I don’t let my roots grow deep into places. Places are meaningless. Places have no meaning, no worth.
A view is a view, a hill is a hill. I’ll bet I can find another view, another hill that is equally beautifully in its own way.
But if we’re talking about people, about letting my roots grow deep into people, I’d have to give you a different answer, for people are where I grow the most.
I don’t grow anywhere else. I only grow into people, into living creatures. It is impossible to find a substitute for the people who have allowed me to grow deep into them.
People are not just another view, another hill. People are precious.
Maybe this sounds trite, writes Ernest Pipe, maybe this sounds sentimental, a platitude that doesn’t need to be mentioned, let alone written. But, for me, it is nothing of the sort. For me, I cannot write enough that people are precious.
People are precious.
And yet I’ve left many people behind, just like places, I’ve physically left a lot of people in my life, but we can still make a point to stay in touch, we can still go out of our way to visit and laugh together, walk together, grow together, be together.
I don’t, on the other hand, make a point to visit places I’ve left. That’s because places aren’t people. Places aren’t precious.
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